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No.38 A Walk to the Jetty

Exam code: 2010
Written by: Ashika|Reviewed by: Caroline Carroll|Updated 2 July 2026

No.38 A Walk to the Jetty: A Walk to the Jetty analysis

A Walk to the Jetty analysis

In the exam, you will be asked to answer one question from two options. Both questions will be on a different text from the selection of ten texts in Stories of Ourselves Volume 2. 

Because there are so many text options, make sure you read through the exam instructions carefully, and look for the questions on Stories of Ourselves. 

The following guide to A Walk to the Jetty by Jamaica Kincaid contains:

  • Plot summary

  • Themes, ideas and perspectives

  • Writer’s methods

  • Key quotations

No.38 A Walk to the Jetty: Plot summary

Plot summary of A Walk to the Jetty

Written in 1985, Kincaid’s novel Annie John is set in Antigua during the 1950s and 1960s, a time during which Antigua was under British colonial rule. Its last chapter is called A Walk to the Jetty. 

In this chapter, the young female protagonist, Annie, is preparing to leave her childhood home in Antigua to embark on a voyage to England. On her last morning in her childhood home she reflects on all the things she will leave behind. She is reminded of happy times, but she is also very happy that this will be the last time she sees her house and her parents. Annie says she does not want to go to England, but she will go anywhere to get away from home. 

After a tense breakfast, during which she looks at her parents with “disgust” and tells her mother she will never marry like she did, Annie and her parents set off for the docks. On the way, under a blue sky, she takes in all the familiar sights, reminding herself that this will be the last time she will see them. She remembers moments of her childhood, friends she used to love, and, as she goes, she smiles politely as people say goodbye and wish her luck, feeling a disconnection to them all. 

Eventually, she arrives and must walk on to the jetty. She worries, as she always has, that she will fall through the wooden planks into the water. Annie’s nervousness about her trip is mixed with her desperation to leave. When she boards the ship she must remember to wave goodbye to her parents, and, then, she and the ship grow smaller as they enter the open sea. The chapter ends with a nervous Annie listening to the strange sounds of the waves.

No.38 A Walk to the Jetty: Themes, ideas and perspectives

Themes, ideas and perspectives in A Walk to the Jetty

For top marks, you need to form a critical understanding of the text’s themes and ideas. This is best when it includes personal judgements and evaluations of the themes, ideas, and perspectives of the text. Here are some of the key ideas you will need to understand in Jamaica Kincaid’s A Walk to the Jetty. 

What are the key themes in A Walk to the Jetty?

Theme 

Analysis

Identity 

  • Kincaid presents the transition from adolescence to adulthood as uncomfortable:

    • Annie says that she “did not want to go to England” nor did she want to “be a nurse”

    • However, she would prefer to be living in a “cavern and keeping house for seven unruly men” rather than stay

    • Annie says she is “shoulder to shoulder” with her parents, so it is “not very comfortable to walk” together

  • The walk to the jetty symbolises her childhood:

    • She feels detached from the people around her 

    • She feels she has “drifted apart” from her friends

    • She repeatedly reminds herself to take in all the memories for the “last time”

  • Her childhood memories are represented by places she passes:

    • As she passes the unkind seamstress’ house, Annie is happy to place her on the “dustheap” of her life

    • She remembers the church where she was christened, and the route to the chemist on her first walk alone 

Family relationships 

  • Kincaid illustrates a teenager’s growing sense of defiance as they desire independence from their parents:

    • Annie is sarcastic when she describes photographs of people she is “supposed to love forever no matter what”

    • She is happy to never again hear her mother “gargling” 

    • She tells her mother that it is “absurd” to get married 

  • Annie accepts that her relationship with her family is changing: 

    • She says she is “apart” and they are “together”

  • Kincaid illustrates how the vast age difference between Annie and her father cause a barrier:

    • She describes her father as ill and old, with “false teeth”

    • He does not talk about the “personal” things that she likes to

Cultural differences   

  • Kincaid reveals the British colonial influence in Antigua:

    • Their “grooming aids” are “imported from London”

    • Annie likes the talcum powder that comes in a tin with images of Victorian England on it

    • She attends “Brownie meetings” and “Sunday school”

  • At the same time, Annie describes the native creole culture: 

    • Her father drinks “herbs and barks that he boils in water” instead of the “medicine the doctor has ordered”

    • Her mother gives Annie clothes and jewellery given by the “obeah” women to protect her from “evil spirits”

    • Annie describes how the “poor people lived near the shore” under the “hot sun” and “blue sky”

No.38 A Walk to the Jetty: Writer's methods

Writer's methods in A Walk to the Jetty

How does Jamaica Kincaid present her ideas and perspectives?

In Kincaid’s A Walk to the Jetty, a young girl presents her perspectives on her childhood in Antigua. Kincaid illustrates the cultural differences between Annie, the narrator, and her family and friends as she prepares herself for a new life in England. Kincaid may imply that it is necessary to criticise — and even reject — your childhood in order to move away from it.  

Technique 

Analysis

First-person narrator 

  • Kincaid creates a coming-of-age story by relating the personal development of a young girl becoming independent

  • The first-person voice is introspective and self aware, a mostly credible narrator:

    • She says: “When I look at things in a certain way, I suppose I should say that the two of them made me with their own hands”

  • Her individuality is represented by her rebellious and defiant voice:

    • “I never wanted to lie in my bed again” is repeated in anaphora

  • Annie’s mixed emotions about her childhood illustrate her complex identity:

    • She describes familiar places as strange to her now, “as if they were hanging in the air”, alluding to the state of limbo she is in

Symbolism 

  • Kincaid uses Annie’s house to represent barriers between a teenager and their parents: 

    • The house, Annie says, belongs to them, not her

    • She repeats a list of all the things her “father built with his own hands” and her mother “mother made with her own hands”

  • The jetty she must cross to board the ship and leave Antigua symbolises childhood fear:

    • She has the “old fear” of falling through into the “dark-green” water, where the “dark-green eels” live 

  • The sea represents the separation and distance between Annie and her family home:

    • She describes her mother as “a dot in the matchbox-size launch swallowed up in the big blue sea”

No.38 A Walk to the Jetty: Key quotations

A Walk to the Jetty key quotations

The mark scheme for Section B of Literature in English Paper 1 asks you to showcase your knowledge of the story in the question. To do this, you should refer to the text through references and quotations. You will not be required to remember direct quotations, though. Summarising, paraphrasing, referencing single words, and referring to plot events are all considered valid supporting evidence for your points. 

The best way to revise quotations is in connection to a theme. Below you will find explanations and analysis of some key quotations from Jamaica Kincaid’s A Walk to the Jetty, arranged by the following themes:

  • Identity

  • Family relationships 

  • Cultural differences

Identity   

Meaning and context

  • Annie looks around her bedroom on her last morning in Antigua and sees all the things that used to be so important to her

Analysis

  • Annie’s observation of the things that used to represent a part of her identity as a child is in past tense:

    • The fact that they “had” meant a lot to me implies that this is no longer true

  • Kincaid shows the rather emotionless response of a teen girl desperate to leave home, and feeling a disconnection with her past 

Meaning and context

  • Annie recognises her changing identity:

    • She feels completely differently about everything now

  • The truths she used to believe are now as “false” as her elderly father’s fake teeth 

Analysis

  • Kincaid’s humorous simile raises ideas about the the word “false”, which is used to emphasise her father’s age and to represent untruths in her previous beliefs

  • Annie is presented as self-aware, and, perhaps, a little alarmed at how much she is changing as an individual and forming a completely new set of values 

Family relationships  

Meaning and context

  • When Annie boards the ship to leave her family and home forever, she is distressed, describing her feelings as if she was being torn apart into small fragments

  • She says that the person she was is being reduced to “nothing” by the voyage as it is ripping her from her family and past 

Analysis

  • Kincaid’s metaphor of Annie becoming fragments of herself describes the process of growing up and finding independence as painful and frightening:

    • The sea represents the distance created between Annie and her home

    • She compares herself to paper, suggesting that she is fragile and easily destroyed by the water:

      • It’s as if her identity is breaking up

  • The long sentence reflects Annie’s sense of becoming overwhelmed and panicking

Meaning and context

  • Annie tries to remember that she has no choice but to leave

  • She focuses on her future (the “road”) which can only lead her away from all that she knows, and everything that represents her childhood 

Analysis

  • Kincaid reveals Annie’s anxious thoughts as she veers between desperation, sadness, and determined self-control

  • Her strength of will is conveyed in anaphora where she lists the things from which she needs to be “away”

Cultural differences 

Meaning and context

  • As Annie looks at everything for the last time, she decides whether they are good or bad, to be remembered or discarded

  • One of the things she decides to discard, or place a “mark” next to, is the “obeah women” who give her clothes and “jewelry” that contain magical spells 

Analysis

  • Kincaid shows the tensions between old and new culture, and the influence of British colonialism on a teenager in Antigua, a British colony in the Caribbean

  • Annie is keen to distance herself from the spiritual traditions which her mother continues, such as warding off evil spirits with special clothing and jewellery

Meaning and context

  • Annie describes how she was allowed to wear her mother’s special “talcum powder”, which came from “London”

  • She describes the fragrant scent and how its tin has pictures of Victorian English ladies and gentlemen painted on it

Analysis

  • Annie’s coming of age is symbolised by the move from Antigua to England:

    • She is happy that she is able to use the fancy talcum powder from England rather than the “baby-smelling” powder she usually uses

  • Kincaid shows how England represents Annie’s future, one she believes will be sophisticated and very different to her childhood home

Sources

Wilmer, M (ed.), 2018, Stories of Ourselves: Cambridge Assessment International Education Anthology of Stories in English Volume 2, Cambridge University Press.

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